ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the limited uptake of the EU’s prospectus for comprehensive trade and regulatory liberalisation through the Economic Partnership Agreements. It argues that the main cause of this was a process of divergence between the trajectory of the multilateral trade system, on which the EU had based its principle justification for the EPAs, and the EU’s evolving priorities in relation to the EPA negotiations themselves. This undermined the legitimacy of the EU’s approach and made it vulnerable to criticism from ACP and civil society actors. The chapter argues that this case illustrates the political contingency of North–South trade negotiations.
